Changes in bookmarks 🤔?

[Uladzimir Yankovich]

Our extension stores some content in the browser bookmarks in the Other Bookmarks directory. Some users have started calling this section All Bookmarks, but only in the bookmarks panel; in the manager, it still calls Other Bookmarks — https://gang.manganum.app/3TnS0CyK 🙈.

This week, several of our users complained that our extension is broken. Judging by the screenshots in their browsers, the Other Bookmark folder ID is no longer = 2, as it always was.

Has anyone else encountered this problem?

[Payel]

👍

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Chromium Extensions" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to chromium-extens...@chromium.org.
To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/a/chromium.org/d/msgid/chromium-extensions/25411fb5-6ee7-46a7-b346-83f08cb38048n%40chromium.org.

[Oliver Dunk]

Hi both,

There were some recent changes that we're currently determining the impact of.

You can follow along here: https://issues.chromium.org/360160839

Thanks for your patience,

Oliver Dunk | DevRel, Chrome Extensions | https://developer.chrome.com/ | London, GB

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/a/chromium.org/d/msgid/chromium-extensions/CAOG_JKJ1QVtfuYGx3Zn8TcHTtczBmeO%2B%2BK%2B%3DeLjqRvKs0%3Dd-%3Dw%40mail.gmail.com.

[Alexander Ostapenko]

It seems that all users bookmark IDs are periodically changing. In my extension, users reports for example, the app was originally linked to a folder with ID 183, but after Chrome updates, it crashes because the ID of this folder has changed to 93.

пятница, 16 августа 2024 г. в 14:13:26 UTC+2, Oliver Dunk:

[Oliver Dunk]

Hi Alexander,

Could you expand on what behavior you're seeing?

I can definitely understand how this would cause issues, but it shouldn't cause a process or browser crash.

Thanks,

Oliver Dunk | DevRel, Chrome Extensions | https://developer.chrome.com/ | London, GB

[Alexander Ostapenko]

Hi Oliver,

When I mentioned a crash, I was referring to an exception in the extension that occurs when it tries to access a bookmark category by an ID that no longer exists.

This issue occurs not because the user manually deleted the category, but because the ID of the category has changed.

 For example:

Other bookmarks -> extension_folder -> some bookmarks / folders

In the extension, I store the ID of extension_folder and also the IDs of some bookmarks / folders. However, after some time, the extension stops being able to correctly access extension_folder or some bookmarks / folders because the ID of extension_folder or any other folder changes.

I have a workaround where I locate the folder for my extension by its “title” and restore the relations using the new IDs, but this approach is not practical for long-term development. Users are still experiencing instability in the extension.

I can add logging on my side to gather more information when an ID mismatch occurs, which might help us better understand at what stage or how often this happens.

четверг, 29 августа 2024 г. в 13:45:32 UTC+2, Oliver Dunk:

[Oliver Dunk]

Thanks, that extra context is helpful.

At the moment I don't have any updates, but I've just asked if we can try to figure out the next steps here. We'll definitely keep the Chromium bug updated so if you haven't already I'd suggest starring that.

Apologies again for the lack of heads up about this change. I know that's frustrating.

Oliver Dunk | DevRel, Chrome Extensions | https://developer.chrome.com/ | London, GB

[Alexander Ostapenko]

Great Oliver! I'm glad to see progress on resolving the issue!

I’ve written a detailed investigation on this bug today in the Chromium issues.

In the next few days, I’ll add a metric to my extension to track how many users are affected and to monitor when the fix is implemented to ensure it works.

четверг, 29 августа 2024 г. в 16:01:57 UTC+2, Oliver Dunk:

[Oliver Dunk]

Thanks Alexander!

Just to let you know, I'm not sure the memory issues you mentioned are the cause of this. We made some intentional changes to the handling of bookmark IDs and this is almost certainly at least part of why the IDs are changing in newer versions of Chrome. That does make this harder to fix, as it was a somewhat intentional change, but we definitely want to mitigate the impact to extension developers as much as possible.

Oliver Dunk | DevRel, Chrome Extensions | https://developer.chrome.com/ | London, GB

[Homey]

It looks like the number of users affected by randomized bookmark IDs has increased after the latest Chrome update.
Over the past day, I’ve received multiple user reports describing this exact issue, and our Sentry logs show a clear spike starting around October 29.

This behavior causes problems for extensions that rely on stable bookmark IDs — it completely breaks functionality for those users and results in a poor user experience.

четверг, 29 августа 2024 г. в 16:41:27 UTC+2, Oliver Dunk:

[Oliver Dunk]

Hi,

Thanks for the report.

We're tracking a potential regression here: https://issues.chromium.org/issues/456225717. I'd encourage you to +1 the bug so you receive updates as soon as they are available.

Out of interest - what do you use the IDs for in your extension and what impact is this having?

Oliver Dunk | DevRel, Chrome Extensions | https://developer.chrome.com/ | London, GB

[Oliver Dunk]

Hi,

Thanks for sharing that context - it makes a lot of sense. I suspected you might be trying to do something like this but I just wanted to make sure.

What makes it more frustrating is that this issue was discussed before, and developers were hoping for a long-term stable solution to prevent exactly this kind of breakage in the future.

We didn't intend to change any IDs as part of the work we did recently. This was an unfortunate unintended consequence of some work that happened. We're already in the process of reverting that change and the team will be taking a look to see how we can avoid the same issue if we make a similar change again.

Oliver Dunk | DevRel, Chrome Extensions | https://developer.chrome.com/ | London, GB

On Thu, Oct 30, 2025 at 3:23 PM Homey <silves...@gmail.com> wrote:

Hi Oliver, 

Each folder a user selects is referenced by its chrome.bookmarks ID, and that ID is what connects the user’s folders and bookmarks to their layout inside the extension.

When those IDs change, the extension can no longer locate the user’s chosen folders — so their bookmarks simply disappear from the UI.

Every bookmark and folder also has custom user-defined properties — such as icon, custom icon, bookmark color, folder color, and folder icon.

All of these are stored in Homey and linked to the original bookmark or folder by its ID.

When Chrome randomly regenerates IDs for all bookmarks, all of these mappings break, and users lose their visual and organizational settings.

This just happened again for all users after the latest update, causing another wave of negative feedback and uninstalls.

Even users who paid for the premium version lost their customized folder and bookmark setups.

At this point, a Chrome extension has no reliable way to trust any persistent identity in chrome.bookmarks.

It can’t rely on a bookmark’s ID or any other stable property.

What makes it more frustrating is that this issue was discussed before, and developers were hoping for a long-term stable solution to prevent exactly this kind of breakage in the future.

четверг, 30 октября 2025 г. в 15:36:01 UTC+1, Oliver Dunk:

[Homey]

Hi Oliver, 

Each folder a user selects is referenced by its chrome.bookmarks ID, and that ID is what connects the user’s folders and bookmarks to their layout inside the extension.

When those IDs change, the extension can no longer locate the user’s chosen folders — so their bookmarks simply disappear from the UI.

Every bookmark and folder also has custom user-defined properties — such as icon, custom icon, bookmark color, folder color, and folder icon.

All of these are stored in Homey and linked to the original bookmark or folder by its ID.

When Chrome randomly regenerates IDs for all bookmarks, all of these mappings break, and users lose their visual and organizational settings.

This just happened again for all users after the latest update, causing another wave of negative feedback and uninstalls.

Even users who paid for the premium version lost their customized folder and bookmark setups.

At this point, a Chrome extension has no reliable way to trust any persistent identity in chrome.bookmarks.

It can’t rely on a bookmark’s ID or any other stable property.

What makes it more frustrating is that this issue was discussed before, and developers were hoping for a long-term stable solution to prevent exactly this kind of breakage in the future.

четверг, 30 октября 2025 г. в 15:36:01 UTC+1, Oliver Dunk:

Hi,